Beer: Ratings & Reviews

Pours a clear light brown color, topped with a decent tan colored head. Retention is pretty decent too.The aroma is surprisingly weak. Truthfully, all I could pick up were some laty notes.The taste is quite neutral, but it develops a somewhat bittery feel.Drinkable, enjoyable, but... a bit more taste perhaps.

Best before 1-05-05. Pours in fine and gives a nice white foam that lasts well. Color is lightbrown and nice and clear. Nose is diacethyl, malts and litle sweetness. Taste is creamy, buttery, full& sweet malty and only litle bitter at the end. Beer seems to have suffered from oxigene but also had a lot of diacethyl. No bad beer but had better ones from the other Duesseldorfer Hausbrauereien.

I had this at the Schlüssel brewpub/restaurant in Dusseldorf, served in short glasses that magically replace as they empty. The beer is a light tan color, clear, with a few fingers of white foam. The aroma is fairly neutral, the dominant impression is of sweet malts, a little nutty or caramel. Same in the taste, I think this is a very approachable beer style for anybody, just not flavorful enough to make it too special for me.

This is a style that I've tried several times in the USA and always finished feeling underwhelmed. Similar to Kolsch in that aspect (although this is darker and maltier than Kolsch), it seems to be a subtle style. Maybe similar to Kolsch I'll one day really start to like it and identify it with the city it comes from.

My second alt brewery visit on 4/11/2013. First of two served in a .2l stange. Pours a mahogany hue with a latte-like, half inch cream-colored head embedded with tiny craters. Nose smells primarily like wort. Taste follows nose - a bit thin and watery. Hops bittering comes out at the finish and is both earthy and subtle. Mouthfeel is light-medium in body with a carbonation just shy of lively, with a crisp, slightly dry finish. Overall, a nice altbier that is a bit less hoppy than Uerige's offering.

Often though of as an amber ale with German lager character, this hybrid of a beer has the smooth drinkability of well malted German lagers and with the toasty notes of a dunkel. But this beer balances toward hoppy bitterness like no other.

Pouring a deep amber, taking on rust-like colors, the beer shows near brilliant clarity, slightly off white foam that forms a delicate yet sturdy foam stance. Light on lace and moderate with retention, comparisons to lighter dunkels do come to mind.

Muted aromas of toast with faint caramel, grain, and malt deliver a clean and well attenuated scent that leaves the nose wanting more.

Flavors fare much more vividly. Bread crust, walnuts, scorched caramel, and a hint of date or fig come to mind before the initial flavors fall off and the hop bitterness sets in. With basically no hop aroma and faint herbal flavor, the bitterness seems remarkably high in the finish as the other malt flavors disipate, all leading to a very clean, crisp finish with mild grain and earthy bitterness.

Medium creaminess early is short lived, transcending the beer to a quick and abrupt bitterness with light grassy harshness and mild watering.

A very drinkable beer with a lot of character for a lighter beer especially up front. But the terse finish makes the beer clean yet tearse.

Copper color, very clean and limpid. Two fingers of a beautiful foam, that left a lot of laces.Malty smell, with a light caramel, and a bit of grassy hop.Malty taste, too, and light caramel again, then the hop bitterness, not very long, but good.Light body, great drinkability.

Here's an alt with a lighter cola brown color and an inch thick of head which retains itself well and leaves thicks rings of lace around. The aroma is filled with bread dough, bread crust, and a touch of vague fruit. Something different happens in the taste; sure, the crusty bread and toffee notes are common per style, but this one brings a noticable spicy hop note , making it hoppier than the other alts that I tried in Dusseldorf. It's medium bodied, with a modest crisp snap in the finish.

A little different, but still a damn good alt to cloth yourself from cold weather.

D - Even though it's only a tad more alcohol than the other alts the heavier flavor profile and higher carbonation made it a tad less easy to drink. It was definitely the most complex in flavor profile, but it least fits my preferences for the style. Still, well worth trying if you are in Düsseldorf and want to do a survey of the style.